Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Journal of Criminal Justice 37(5)

Predictors of job satisfaction among police officers: Does personality matter?
Holly A. Miller, Scott Mire, Bitna Kim
The aim of this research was to enhance the theoretical foundation of job satisfaction within the field of policing. The data were collected through a self-report survey administered to a sample of sworn police officers (N = 87). The primary research question was whether personality characteristics significantly contribute to perceptions of job satisfaction beyond which could be explained through demographic and job characteristic variables. Although results of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that overall personality measurement added to the variance accounted for in job satisfaction beyond demographic and job characteristic variables, none of the independent personality scales were significant predictors. Overall, results demonstrated that years of experience and the job characteristic factors of autonomy and feedback were the most important predictors of job satisfaction in this sample of police offers. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Ethnic and immigrant residential concentration, and crime rates
Sergio Herzog
One of the main arguments of social disorganization theory is that ethnic heterogeneity, influenced by immigrant residential concentration, is highly disruptive for community organization, and therefore, highly criminogenic. The effect of immigrant residential concentration on crime rates is, however, generally masked by the general effect of the broader category of ethnic heterogeneity. Some recent studies even suggested a negative relationship between immigrant residential concentration and crime. The present study, conducted in the city of Haifa, Israel, used neighborhood level data to test the specific relationship between immigrant residential concentration and crime rates among recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The results showed that the decomposition of ethnic heterogeneity into its two main components—immigrant residential concentration and ethnic residential concentration—served to qualify the predicted effects of social disorganization theory.

How staff attitude and support for inmate treatment and rehabilitation differs by job category: An evaluation of findings from Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections' employee training curriculum ‘Reinforcing Positive Behavior’
Jacqueline L. Young, Michael E. Antonio, Lisa M. Wingeard
In July 2006, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections began delivering a training session titled Reinforcing Positive Behavior to all new employees. The training educated staff about the department's philosophy on inmate treatment programming and about staff responsibilities for reinforcing treatment concepts. Findings from a survey administered immediately after the training revealed that treatment and clerical staff strongly agreed that how they treat inmates and how they behave in a correctional facility impacts inmate rehabilitation efforts, and that reinforcing positive behavior among inmates was a requirement of their profession. Also, treatment and clerical staff, more so than correctional officers, recognized that staff support of treatment programs impacted inmate rehabilitation outcomes and that staff actions and interactions with other staff and inmates can make a correctional facility a more positive place.

Street youths' violent responses to violent personal, vicarious, and anticipated strain
Stephen W. Baron
Utilizing general strain theory, this study explored the role experienced violent victimization, vicarious violent victimization, and two forms of anticipated violent victimization, played in the generation of street youths' violent offending. Basic models showed that experienced, vicarious, and fear of anticipated victimization were associated with violent offending. Full models suggested that only experienced violent victimization had a lower order relationship with violence. The relationship between experienced victimization and violence was further moderated by negative emotionality and low constraint. Males were also more likely to respond to experienced victimization with violence at higher levels of social support. Findings also revealed the relationship between vicarious violent victimization and violence was moderated by low constraint. Further, anticipated risk of violent victimization was associated with violent offending at lower levels of constraint, greater negative emotionality, and higher levels of social support. Results are discussed and avenues for future research are offered.

Examining the “CSI-effect” in the cases of circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony: Multivariate and path analyses
Young S. Kim, Gregg Barak, Donald E. Shelton
As part of a larger investigation of the changing nature of juror behavior in the context of technology development, this study examined important questions unanswered by previous studies on the “CSI-effect.” In answering such questions, the present study applied multivariate and path analyses for the first time. The results showed that (a) watching CSI dramas had no independent effect on jurors' verdicts, (b) the exposure to CSI dramas did not interact with individual characteristics, (c) different individual characteristics were significantly associated with different types of evidence, and (d) CSI watching had no direct effect on jurors' decisions, and it had an indirect effect on conviction in the case of circumstantial evidence only as it raised expectations about scientific evidence, but it produced no indirect effect in the case of eyewitness testimony only. Finally, implications of the present study as well as for future research on the “CSI-effect” on jurors are discussed.

Explaining criminal victimization in Taiwan: A lifestyle approach
Shih-Ya Kuo, Steven J. Cuvelier, Kuang-Ming Chang
Routine activities and lifestyle-exposure theories were shaped and substantially tested in Western societies; this study extended their application to a non-Western context in Taiwan. Using the most recent but underutilized 2005 Taiwan Areas Criminal Victimization Survey, responses from a random sample of 18,046 participants were analyzed for robbery, assault, and personal larceny victimization. The findings showed that the risk factors associated with criminal victimization in Taiwan resembled those in Western nations, but anomalies also appeared. Females faced a higher risk of being robbed than males; married and affluent persons were more likely to be victims of personal larceny than not married or less affluent persons; and those who stayed home at night were more likely to be assaulted than those who went out at night. The discussion of these findings suggest that explaining victimization patterns involve more than victims' attributes or lifestyles; the social and cultural context should be considered as well.

Correlates of currency counterfeiting
Robert G. Morris, Heith Copes, Kendra Perry-Mullis
Estimates from the U.S. Secret Service suggest that $40 million worth of counterfeit currency are confiscated each year in the United States. Despite measures to guard against the crime, modern technology has made reproducing fraudulent bills relatively easy. Over 90 percent of counterfeiting reported in the United States results from the use of readily available digital technology. Yet, little is known about the characteristics of the crime or those who engage in it. The current article presents a descriptive analysis of counterfeiting using data from closed case files from the Secret Service in a southern jurisdiction. Results suggest advances in consumer digital technologies have democratized the crime. That is, this form of offending is committed by a diverse group in terms of age, gender, race, and criminal history. The majority of counterfeiting cases involved multiple offenders, particularly among female counterfeiters. Sample limitations are discussed, as are recommendations for future research.

Self-control, differential association, and gang membership: A theoretical and empirical extension of the literature
Jason Kissner, David C. Pyrooz
Using data gathered from a sample of two hundred jail inmates housed in a large California city, this research extends the still nascent literature on the self-control/gang membership association. The article begins by first articulating more comprehensively than earlier research Gottfredson and Hirschi's theoretical justification for expecting a self-control/gang membership link. Next, an examination is undertaken of the relative independent influences on gang membership of self-control and a series of measures, derived from differential association theory, that mainly tap familial gang involvement. On the whole, logistic regression models suggested that self-control exerted an effect on gang membership that was almost entirely independent of, but also modest in comparison to, familial gang involvement effects, although the results also indicated the insignificance of self-control upon controlling for a series of differential association measures. Finally, theoretical implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are offered.

Juvenile attitudes towards the police: The importance of subcultural involvement and community ties
Bradley T. Brick, Terrance J. Taylor, Finn-Aage Esbensen
Citizens' attitudes toward police have been examined in a variety of contexts during the past several decades. Additionally, the importance of juveniles' attitudes towards the police has received considerable attention during the past decade. The current article examines attitudes toward police from a large, multi-site study of sixth to ninth grade youths. Three specific questions were examined: (1) What is the influence of police contact (generally and by different types of contact) on juvenile attitudes toward the police? (2) How does involvement in delinquent subcultures affect these attitudes? (3) How do community contexts and ties influence juvenile attitudes toward the police? Results suggested that community ties and involvement in delinquent subcultures substantially mediate the influence of police contact on juveniles' attitudes toward the police.

Why do people support gun control?: Alternative explanations of support for handgun bans
Gary Kleck, Marc Gertz, Jason Bratton
Many scholars have suggested that Americans' positions on gun control are the product of culture conflicts. This assertion has been largely based on associations of gun control opinion with membership in social groups believed to be hostile, or favorable, towards gun ownership, rather than with direct measures of the cultural traits thought to mediate the effects of group membership on gun control opinion. Data from a 2005 national telephone survey were analyzed to test competing theories of why people support handgun bans. Instrumental explanations, which stress belief in a policy's likely effectiveness, accounted for less than 25 percent of the variation in support. The results supported the culture conflict perspective. Those who endorsed negative stereotypes about gun owners, and who did not believe in the need to defend their own homes against crime (versus relying on the police) were more likely to support handgun bans.

An assessment of the relative impact of criminal justice and criminology journals
Jon R. Sorensen
The current study was undertaken to provide an impact assessment of criminal justice and criminology journals as an alternative measure to the prestige survey ratings reported by Sorensen, Snell, and Rodriguez (2006). Citations to sixty-seven target journals were tallied from ten top criminal justice and criminology journals. Various impact measures were fairly consistent with one another and the prestige survey ratings, particularly for a “top tier” of journals. With a couple of notable exceptions, a long-standing core of these elite journals has held their relative positions from early impact studies relying on data from the 1970s and 1980s; nevertheless, significant deviations were noted based on the measurement utilized for all but the top journals. Findings from the current study suggested that the quality of journals is multifaceted and warns against employing a scale based on one dimension of journal quality.

Gender differences in police officers' attitudes: Assessing current empirical evidence
Margarita Poteyeva, Ivan Y. Sun
Research on attitudinal differences between female and male police officers has burgeoned since the 1980s, producing a rich albeit at times contradictory legacy. Focusing on quantitative studies published after 1990, this current study reviewed empirical results regarding attitudinal differences between female and male police officers. A comprehensive search of the literature yielded thirty-three articles where gender was used either as an independent or control variable in multivariate regression analysis. A general finding was that officer gender has only a weak effect on officers' attitudes toward community policing, the community and neighborhood residents, job satisfaction, and domestic violence. There was some limited evidence showing that male and female officers differ in their attitudes toward the police role and stress. The limitations of this research are pointed out, and the directions for future research are identified.

Journal of Criminal Justice, September-October 2009: Volume 37, Issue 5

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